Feds Resolve to Expand Criminal Prosecutions of Workplace Safety Violations in the New Year

As the year draws to a close and the New Year approaches, people all around the world will be contemplating what they can resolve to do better in 2017. This year, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) seem to be celebrating the tradition as well. In a move akin to a "New Year's Resolution" to do better by workers, the two agencies have just announced that they will be expanding their "worker endangerment initiative" to bolster criminal prosecutions against employers responsible for endangering workers' health and safety. The new initiative is an encouraging step toward punishing employers who make decisions that put profits over people and toward deterring others from violating federal labor laws. But the initiative - while it's a beneficial supplement to the weak criminal penalties applicable to many labor violations - is also limited in scope and shouldn't be regarded as a comprehensive solution. The purpose of the DOL/DOJ worker endangerment initiative is to supplement the weak criminal penalty provisions found in three of our nation's labor laws - the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), the Mine Safety and Health Act (Mine Act), and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA). In essence, the initiative encourages federal prosecutors investigating potential criminal charges for labor law violations to look for possible violations of other federal criminal laws with stronger penalties that they can pursue.